Given that so many of Buckleys novels are concerned with ideas of memory, selfhood and storytelling, this is hardly new territory for him. Yet the interview conceit inTellmakes it feel fresh, the withholding of interiority requiring an unusual engagement. Dont take the conversational prose at face value; underneath it lies a whole other set of mysteries besides Curtiss. Pay attention and youll find them.
George Cochrane,Financial Times
Always well crafted, this novel is engaging in parts and digressive in others, which adds to its realism, capturing how people chatter their way down alleys, rarely hewing to the main road of a tale. The buildup inTellis perpetual, a sense that an explanation must be coming. But the author diverges from expectations and converges on reality, where remembering is not the same as understanding. Abruptly, someone may just disappear, and all that remains is the sight of a figure wandering across a bridge - no splash heard, just the fading ripples of why.
Tom Rachman,New York Times
[T]he gardeners voice is companionable and persuasive, and, as she speaks, the sound comes in from all around. All of this adds up to a rich and satisfying portrait ... and a fascinating exploration of what it means to tell stories about our lives.
David Annand,Times Literary Supplement
Buckley... asks readers to think about how and why stories are told. This self-reflexivity results in a thought-provoking, artfully constructed narrative enriched by the mysteries that expand and proliferate throughout. Its a deliciously fraught tour de force.
Publishers Weekly, starred review
[A] riveting thriller that sweeps you in from the off... Buckleys prose is unpretentious and engrossing, weaving in a constant sense of foreboding that proves irresistible.
Martha Alexander,AnOther Magazine
A novel about the nature of storytelling, and who gets to tell and shape them.
Kirkus
Buckleys fiction is subtle and fastidiously low-key ... every apparently loose thread, when tugged, reveals itself to be woven into the themes [and] gets better the more you allow it to settle in your mind.
Michel Faber,Guardian
Exactly why Buckley is not already revered and renowned as a novelist in the great European tradition remains a mystery that will perhaps only be addressed at that final godly hour when all the overlooked authors working in odd and antique modes will receive their just rewards.
Ian Sansom,Times Literary Supplement
Few writers manage to conjure such raw unease as Jonathan Buckley ... completely compelling.
Adrian Turpin,Financial Times
Why isnt Jonathan Buckley better known? His novel of love, death and melancholy comedy,The Great Concert of the Night, is captivating.
John Banville
